Steve McIntosh Report Blog Archive

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon has issued a preliminary injunction, blocking required images on cigarette packages until 15 months after a lawsuit is resolved. Judge Leon believes cigarette makers might win their case.

U-S-A Today reports: “In June, the F-D-A approved nine graphic warnings that tobacco makers could rotate on cigarette packs beginning in September 2012. The images, which would cover the top half of the front and back of each pack, include a corpse with chest staples on an autopsy table and a man breathing into an oxygen mask”.

In August, four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies sued the federal government … arguing that the warning labels would cost millions to print and would violate their free-speech rights.

I don’t like smoking. I see nothing wrong with restricting smoking in public places. I don’t want any of my loved ones to smoke. But I think the government has gone too far in trying to dictate the labels on cigarette packaging. I think the F-D-A ought to lose this case.

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Our thought for today is from Robert Jackson:

“The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.”

Bullying has received a lot of media attention the past couple of years. We hear about young people being bullied in school, on the playground, on the street, and more and more in social media. Now and then we are saddened to hear about a child or teen who commits suicide after being bullied.

Recently I interviewed two women on the front line of the bullying battle in the Wichita public schools … Stephanie Kertz and Michele Zahner ( ZAY-ner) of the Safety Services Division of U-S-D 259. They told me bullying is defined as a situation in which a person or group has power over another … actual or perceived … and the person with power uses it to influence, embarrass, or control the other. An ‘imbalance of power” is present in every bullying incident or pattern of incidents.

Zahner and Kertz told me no bullying complaint is ever taken lightly. They are all investigated and some kind of action is taken when warranted. There is also constant education about bullying for Wichita students and teachers.

The Jim Mann story brings up an interesting point. Mann stepped down one day after taking a job as computer geek for the executive branch of Kansas government. That came after a story broke that he held a business administration degree from Devonshire University, which is not accredited and seems to have a pretty bad reputation in American human resources departments.

Mann was hired by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who admitted that his staff had not thoroughly investigated Mann’s education background, but they had taken a goodlook at Mann’s work history. What really mattered to the governor was Mann’s twenty years on the job … his experience.

This story illustrates what – to me – is a flaw in American employment practices. Do we give too much weight to education and not enough to experience?

When hiring someone, we want to see a good educational background. But how many times has human resources missed a real gem who knew more than how to define the work, but with a record of actually doing the work?

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Our thought for today is from Franklin P. Jones:

“Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.”

The late Andy Rooney delivered his weekly segment on “Sixty Minutes” from 1978 to 2011. They were always well-written and performed … usually on topics other than mainstream media fodder … interesting, amusing … all the things we broadcasters aspire to, in our offerings to the public. I enjoyed every “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” I saw.

Like Mr. Rooney, I’ve had the editorial freedom to pursue any course I choose in these daily radio commentaries of mine. Over some 40 years of McIntosh Reports, I can’t recall a single time that management got involved … other than to ask for copies of scripts when listeners questioned some opinion of mine.

A blessing from doing daily commentary is that I once actually compared notes … talked “shop” with Paul Harvey. He was the gold standard. We agreed that we loved the freedom and responsibility to say what we pleased … and shared the fear that we might run out of something worthwhile to say. Harvey and Rooney never did.

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Our thought for today is from Aristotle:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

The late Andy Rooney delivered his weekly segment on “Sixty Minutes” from 1978 to 2011. They were always well-written and performed … usually on topics other than mainstream media fodder … interesting, amusing … all the things we broadcasters aspire to, in our offerings to the public. I enjoyed every “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” I saw.

Like Mr. Rooney, I’ve had the editorial freedom to pursue any course I choose in these daily radio commentaries of mine. Over some 40 years of McIntosh Reports, I can’t recall a single time that management got involved … other than to ask for copies of scripts when listeners questioned some opinion of mine.

A blessing from doing daily commentary is that I once actually compared notes … talked “shop” with Paul Harvey. He was the gold standard. We agreed that we loved the freedom and responsibility to say what we pleased … and shared the fear that we might run out of something worthwhile to say. Harvey and Rooney never did.

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Our thought for today is from Aristotle:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”